


The Long Road (With Twists)

by ninamalfoy



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Betaed, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-19
Updated: 2010-07-19
Packaged: 2017-10-10 16:28:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/101767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninamalfoy/pseuds/ninamalfoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Decisions determine destiny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Long Road (With Twists)

**Author's Note:**

> First posted on LJ on June 17th, 2008.
> 
> Not true in the least bit. I'm just borrowing their public persona to play.
> 
> Beta-ed by the lovely nora1980 - thank you ever so much for your input and your knowledge! ♥

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


This is how it starts (does it?):

|   
---|---  
| 

No, this is how it starts (or not):  
  
Luis' little hands are warm as they grasp his hand holding the apple, tugging. "Baba!" Luis says. It means banana, food and Dad, and sometimes football.

Basti smiles. "Yes, that's an apple, but you don't want to eat it whole, sonny boy." When he moves to the table, effectively dislodging Luis' grasp, his son pouts at seeing the beloved apple disappear.

But Basti quickly cuts it up and hands a piece to Luis. "Baba!" Basti smiles as he watches his son nibble on an edge. Luis doesn't like the peel, he's a rather picky eater.

|   
| 

Basti leans on the railing of the balcony, looking down into the garden where Tina is bent over the flowers, wearing the big floppy straw hat that she bought in Spain, frayed at the edges. The curve of her back is graceful, hidden under the light blue pareo, and it looks like one of these Kodak moments in the ads, summer day in the garden with gardener or something inane like that, just a pretty picture that he's staring at.

Their son is with her parents who want to spoil their first grandchild for the weekend, and Tina has dropped him off this morning.

Now that it's only the two of them again, Basti doesn't know what to say. No - he _does_ know what he wants to say, just - he can't.  
  
Luis has changed his life, turned it upside down and back again. Having a child is the most exciting and frightening thing that has ever happened to Basti. He can't help not looking at Luis, he takes any chance to touch his little son's soft dark curls. He can't help being mesmerized by the chestnut-brown eyes sprinkled with golden flecks. Luis has his mouth and Tina's nose and his ears (at least his mother says so) and Tina's grace and the doc said he'd grow up to be at least as tall as Basti, but Basti can't imagine his beautiful son turning into a man.

But he's a family man now, and that won't change any time soon. It will never change.

And he has to be responsible for his family.

When Luis laughs at him, it's the easiest thing he's ever done. It _has_ to be.

|   
| 

She's looking at him, her face unreadable.

Basti swallows, not knowing what to say. No - he _knows_ what he said, and so does she.

"Is that what you want?" she asks, finally, smoothing the knotted edge of the pareo over her knees, the strings catching in her fingers.

He can only nod.

"I want custody of him," she says, her voice growing brittle, like cooling steel.

"I won't fight you," he says, and he turns away to not let her see his face. "I don't want us fighting over anything."  
  
"Hola, gordito."

Basti chuckles, balancing the cell phone on his shoulder as he pours milk into Luis' muesli bowl. "Hey - already forgotten your German?"

"Si," and he knows that Metze is also smiling, probably standing on his balcony, the wrought-iron railing already warm from the Spanish sun, and he'll be wearing one of his sleeveless T-shirts, so thin that the sun shines through it like parchment paper, and probably one of his sweatpants, Real-blue with the crest on the front, and his arms'll be shimmering golden, and -

"So you got nothing better than to disturb my breakfast?" Basti asks, putting the bowl in front of Luis, a little milk splashing over.

"Sorry," but Metze doesn't sound even remotely sorry, and Basti can hear him smile. "I still remember you being all grumpy in the morning."

"That hasn't changed," Basti agrees as he sits down next to Luis, smiling as he strokes his son's head. "But when you've got a kid, sleeping in isn't an option."

"Yeah." Basti hears something on the other end, a low conversation, quick phrases of Spanish that he can't decipher - "sorry, I've got to go, give Tina and Luis my love," and then there's the 'click'. Huh. The cleaning lady, perhaps? He has met her once when he had visited Metze in Madrid, a voluptuous dark-skinned woman with a broad smile and rapid-fire Spanish.

|   
| 

He sees Luis every two weeks. He has moved into a small flat, signing the house over to Tina. His lawyer had tried to talk him into challenging some of her demands, but he had just shaken his head. "I want to do right by my family."

Maybe it's foolish, hoping that by doing so she'll forgive him one day for what he did.

Luckily, their divorce hasn't made big waves; it turns up on some news sites and some gossip magazines proclaim, "Happy marriage on the rocks - Sebastian Kehl is divorced!", but it's always on the third-to-last page, the page that isn't important enough for the big or juicy news. Just the way he wanted it. Not as huge as the headlines from when he ended his football career. He had read only a few of the articles that appeared on the day afterwards, wondering why people were so obsessed with searching for reasons why a former national player would drop out of the whole football circus. Some were absurdly hilarious and others were halfway right, but still manipulating the truth to fit their own agendas.

He now understood why Sebastian Deisler didn't want to have anything to do with it anymore.  
  
The match had went well - no one got injured and they had won by a large margin, and Jürgen had given them the day tomorrow off. Basti pulled his cell out of his pocket, squinting at the display. '15 unread messages.' One of them is probably Jogi with congratulations and inquiring after his health (as if Basti didn't know that Jogi phoned his doc regularly to be updated). But the first message is from Metze.

'Awesome match! Take care of your poor brain - that many headers can't be healthy. Write your last will up now or you will regret it if you start drooling.' Basti chuckles. Seeing as he has to wait for Flo anyway, who is off for a last check-up with the docs, he can make use of his free time, and so he hits 'call'.

"Quién es?"

That's not Metze's voice. Basti frowns and looks at the cell display - 'Metze'.

"Uh, Metze - Christoph, es aquí?"

"Un momento par favor." Footsteps, and then Basti hears the voice - the guy, because no way in hell a woman could have such a deep voice - call out something in Spanish, and Basti can hear an answering voice that belongs to Metze.

"He'll come, please wait," and now the guy is speaking English.

"Th - thanks," Basti says, but there's no answer - apparently the guy has already put down the cell for Metze. Whoever he is. The new cleaning lady? Cleaning guy?

It doesn't take long until he hears Metze's breathless voice, "Basti, hey, how was the match?"

"We so totally slaughtered them," Basti grins, "easiest three points we ever made."

"Poor Wolfsburg," and Metze chuckles, "I saw parts of the match, not bad. Did you actually get yellowcarded?" _Again_, Basti hears and he rolls his eyes. "Hey, the other guy was diving!"

"The other guys always are," Metze says, and then Basti hears another voice - the other guy - in the background. "Sorry," Metze says, and then he says something in Spanish, and Basti only understands amigo and something with amarilla, which means yellow, so Metze must be telling the other guy about him, and while Basti knows that Metze has friends in Madrid and gets along okay with Miguel Torres and chats with Raùl sometimes and he has watched him mangle Dutch and German and English when he was telling Ruud about the World Cup 2006 when Basti had been along to a meet-and-greet, somehow this feels different.

"Okay, so -" and Basti interrupts Metze, he has to know, "Who was that?"

Silence, and then he hears Metze clearing his throat. "That was Iago, he's - a friend."

Basti swallows. "Oh. Well, so..." and he can't say anything more because a flotsam of jarred thoughts is swirling around his brain.

"Yes, well, he studies art, and - we get on well. He's okay," and Basti nods, jerkily, before he realizes that he's on the phone and Metze can't see him, "yeah, okay, sorry, I've got to go, Flo's waiting for me," and he closes his cell shut, ending the call.

|   
| 

It was difficult, living alone again, and his small (okay, not so small) flat often felt too big for him. But this was what he wanted, and so he painted a room in light blue, Luis' favorite color, and there was always something new waiting for his son on the small nightstand every two weeks.

Basti learned how to cook single meals, but take-out was often much more uncomplicated and didn't cause so much havoc in the kitchen. He had a cleaning lady come over once a week to clean and dust and hoover and to iron his shirts and suits. The hotelier's training was more complicated than he ever would have thought, but he had enough hands-on experience thanks to his parents to not embarrass himself in front of his fellow students as an former pro football player who didn't need to do this for the money.

He was often too tired to go out in the evenings when he had been on his foot the entire day, working his ass off at the hotel. To be a good hotelier, you had to know all ins and outs of the job, all the way down to the lowest menial task. And that didn't exclude working in the kitchens as dish-washer or in housekeeping, for example.

"Hola, gordito."

Basti smiles as he settles down on his couch with a bottle of Uerdinger, looking forward to an evening of Stromberg reruns. "Hey yourself."

"What are you doing?"

Basti grins. "Not 'what are you wearing?', then?"

"That comes later, idiot." Metze's voice warms Basti from head to toe, and he closes his eyes.

"I thought you liked having dessert before lunch."

"Sometimes taking your time is the best way." Metze's voice has deepened, sending shivers up Basti's spine.  
  
Over the last weeks, Basti has learnt that Iago is almost finished with his studies, that he has just sold his first painting for five hundred Euros and then took Metze out for diner at a ridiculously expensive restaurant and blew the whole money on it (he also works as a TA in the arts department of the university of Madrid), that he lives about half a hour from Metze in a flat-share with two other guys and that he isn't interested in football at all. Iago has dragged Metze along to exhibitions from his fellow students where the free wine is actually the only thing worth coming for, and that Metze is almost never recognized there (save for one time when a speccy girl just wanted to know whether they'd beat Villa and didn't even ask for an autograph).

Basti has only now mustered up the courage to ask Metze to send him a picture of him, because even though their - friendship, relationship, whatever it was, has changed, he still is Metze's friend, no matter what happens, and he's the only one Metze can tell these things to. The only one Metze can tell about Iago (although he doesn't tell Basti _everything_, and he doesn't know if he should be grateful for it).

The email arrives quicker than he would have thought, and Basti clicks it open before he can drag it to the waste basket.

He's not at all what Basti would have expected, and yet he is. Brown curls, dark eyes - so dark that they look as if they had swallowed the night - that are slanted like a cat's, a full generous mouth that is relaxed in laughter, built in a delicate way but there's a sinewy strength in the frame, and he's holding a bottle of beer in a hand, silver bracelet glinting in the sun.

The next picture shows him sitting next to Metze, wearing the same white shirt with the black thread as before, but now they're at Metze's - Basti recognizes the old leather couch that Metze had shipped over to Madrid and the picture Metze got on his last day with the BVB hanging on the wall. Iago's hair looks darker in the soft glow of the lamp, a smile curving his lips and his hand is - resting on Metze's thigh, on the faded jeans that Basti remembers so well. Metze's also smiling, but his eyes are on Iago, shadowed from the light. His hand rests on Iago's shoulder, easy and gentle, and Basti can't swallow the lump in his throat.

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Basti visits Metze in the summer for a week and it was like it always had been, full of laughter and love and long talks deep into the night and when he has to leave Metze at the airport, he wishes he could kiss him again, but it wouldn't do to out one of Real's players to the public, so he just hugs his best friend and whispers, "I wish," - "I know," Metze whispers back, and this is when Basti knows that he will never regret this.  
  
Iago becomes more and more of a fixture in Metze's life, and Basti tries to be a good friend to Metze. After all, they weren't - it had been a long time ago. And Metze deserved someone else who was free to give him what he wanted, and it was for the best, anyway.

|   
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When Metze's coming to visit him for a weekend, Basti agrees on the date until he's reminded of the fact that it is also a Luis-weekend. He calls Metze and asks if it's okay if Luis is there, too, and Metze says, "sure, yeah, no problemo."

"I haven't told him about us," Basti says.

"He doesn't need to know yet," Metze says. "Just that I'm your best friend and that we like each other a lot, and it isn't as if I'd be so sex-starved that I'd hump you in front of your kid, eh?"

"Idiot," Basti laughs, but he's glad.

The weekend turns out to be great as Luis loves Metze from first sight and the feeling's entirely mutual. Soon it turns out that Luis loves to sit on Metze's shoulders when they're going for a walk, babbling nonstop and pointing out things and Basti can't stop smiling at them. He takes a lot of pictures of Metze and Luis:

Luis asleep in Metze's lap, curled up like a cat or rather a dog, seeing as he's drooling on Metze's favorite faded jeans.

Metze and Luis playing football in the living room, the latter laughing as he holds onto Metze's legs to keep him from scoring. "Foul!" Metze yells, but he's laughing, too.

Metze and Luis playing cop and robber, with Luis nicking Basti's World Cup medals and stuffing them into his pockets, but he quickly gives them up when he's tickled mercilessly by Metze.

"You'd make a great father," Basti says as they're sitting on the couch later that evening when Luis is sleeping in his room. He smiles at Metze and the kiss that follows is slow and tender, but it doesn't take long until Basti's moaning into Metze's mouth, straddling his lap and pushing down against the hot hardness that is mirrored by his own, and he swallows Metze's gasps.

"Bedroom," Metze hisses, bucking up against Basti, and then they're scrambling up and trying to tiptoe to the bedroom which proves rather difficult when their hands are all over each other, springing buttons open, lifting shirts and pulling at jeans, and their lips clash hotly again and again, with tongues marking their territory.

Metze is pliant under Basti's touches, arching up against his mouth that traces the ribcage down to the hipbone. When Basti closes his mouth around Metze's erect cock, relearning his musky taste, the faint saltiness spreading as he drags his tongue over the slit, it's fucking perfect. Metze pushes up into him, breathing heavily, his nails digging into Basti's shoulders. The thick vein at the underside pulses as he sucks at it, his hand closing around Metze's balls, tugging gently, knowing that this will drive Metze wild, and the answering groan proves him right.

"Fuck," Metze says, "Basti, oh god," and Basti licks his cock in a broad swipe, closing his lips around the head, lapping up the first drops of precome. His own cock is achingly hard, pressed against the linen, and he longs to touch himself down there, but it's been so long and he'd come too quickly.

"That's my plan," Basti says, breathing onto the head, smelling Metze's arousal, "a lot of fucking."

Metze chuckles breathlessly. "What, did you rob the nearest drugstore of their whole Viagra stock?"

Basti spreads Metze's legs, the strong thighs resting on his shoulders. "Very funny. Get me the lube, yes, there," and the tube lands next to him. He makes quick work of slicking up his fingers, his cock jerking and he feels wetness spread. He can't take too long or he'll come all over the sheets like a teenager.

The first finger goes in easily, "pillow, use a pillow," and Metze's moan is halfway swallowed, his thighs shuddering as Basti inserts his middle finger along the first into the hot tight opening, planting a kiss on the underside of Metze's cock, sucking on the frenulum, and Metze hisses, "get on with it, goddamn you."

Metze tightens around his fingers, bearing down on them, and when he twists his fingers justso and takes the cock into his mouth, twirling his tongue around the head like a lollipop, he hears a drawn-out groan - a sound he knows far too well, and then Metze's spurting into his mouth, pungent saltiness filling his mouth. He lets Metze ride him through the orgasm, the thigh muscles tightening around his head and his fingers thrusting into Metze in rhythm, hitting that spot again and again, until it's over and Metze lifts the pillow off his face.

"Oh man," Metze breathes, "god, you're incredible."

Basti gives his cock a last lick, feeling some come dribble down his chin and grins. "Wait until I've fucked you through the mattress," he says, wriggling his fingers in Metze's ass and earning a groan.

"More like fucking me to death," but Metze's already lifting his legs off Basti's shoulders, spreading them even wider.

And when Basti finally sinks into Metze, it's like coming home.  
  
Madrid is just as he remembers it from his last visit, and Metze's directing the car through the afternoon traffic, looking just the same, his hair cropped short, "best thing in the heat," and sunglasses perching on his nose. Basti can feel his glances, though, and he smiles as he looks out of the window, the glare of the sun making him close his eyes until he sees only reddish warmth.

The guest room looks the same as it always did, bed freshly made and smelling faintly of lavender. Basti doesn't bother to unpack, though, and heads back to the living room where Metze's fiddling with the stereo. He has felt a twinge of anxiety the whole time, something curling coldly at the bottom of his stomach, but now he allows himself to breathe a little deeper.

"You did pretty well against Atlético," he says as he accepts the glass of wine from Metze, the soft leather of the couch welcoming him and reminding him of old times.

Metze smiles and clinks his own glass against Basti's. "Yeah, I felt pretty good throughout it, my feet didn't act up too much. Guess they have learnt their lesson," and he wriggles his bare toes, winking at Basti.

"Yeah, and then you'll stumble over your socks in the morning and end up with a broken toe in the hospital," Basti quips.

"Very funny," Metze says, rolling his eyes, but he can't suppress the grin and they continue the evening in that vein, sharing news about the BvB and Real and jokes and banter, and it's comfortable and just how it _should_ be, and Basti finally feels himself uncoiling all the way, his limbs loosening.

The next day, Basti shuffles into the kitchen, yawning. It's still early, but he couldn't really sleep. The kitchen looks the way they left it yesterday night, the empty glasses in the kitchen sink, red drops drying at the bottom, and there's still a lone slice of pizza on a plate.

There are photos on the freezer, held in place by tacky magnets, and Basti chuckles at the one with the BVB09 logo. But then he sees the picture it holds in place: Iago, looking somber in a black suit, but there's a hidden laugh in his eyes, in that one crinkle, and Basti drags his thumb over the face, skidding.

|   
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Basti knows that everything's worth it, that he doesn't regret anything that brought him here, lying next to Metze in his bed, listening to his bestfriendlover breathe, watching the chest move, the sunlight sifting through the sparse hair peppering Metze's pecs.

He is happy.

Snuggling closer to Metze, he closes his eyes, drifting into sleep again.  
  
When Basti steps into the hall from the bathroom, towelling his head, he hears voices talking in Spanish. It's probably Rosita, Metze's cleaning lady, arguing with him about the fact that he doesn't eat proper, and that he should fatten up - it's an old argument, and Metze has often enough complained to Basti about her buying double what he actually eats, and he has always to trash the rest but she never learns.

But it isn't Rosita he sees when he enters the living room, having pulled on sweaters and a T-shirt to be presentable.

It's Iago, who turns to him, the dark eyes widening.

Metze clears his throat, switching from Spanish to English. "This is Basti, my best friend. I told you about him."

"I remember," Iago says, and he holds out his hand, the silver bracelet glinting. "My name's Iago Sanchéz Guitierrez." He's wearing a red T-shirt with a faded black logo, and cut-off jeans that end just over his knees, and a backpack hangs from his shoulder. He looks younger than he is, probably because the curls are pulled back into a ponytail now.

Basti shakes his hand, a firm dry grip. "Nice to meet you," and the words feel like ashes.

The backpack lands on the couch and Iago stretches, a thin line of tanned skin emerging over the waistband of his cut-off jeans before it's hidden again. "Too heavy to carry around," he says, grinning at Metze as he leans against the couch's back. "So many books to go through for the new semester, you wouldn't believe it."

Metze laughs and says something about just how grueling the training is this season and that Iago really isn't in any position to complain, standing next to Iago - far too close, Basti thinks, feeling his polite smile slipping.

"Coffee, anyone?" Metze asks, his hand slipping from Iago's shoulder, and Basti blinks. Did he miss something?

"You haven't gotten the hang of the new espresso machine yet," Iago says, "let me do it before you mess it up again, sí?" A quick kiss to Metze's temple, tender and soft and it looks just so easy and careless, and Basti swallows. Was it ever like that for them?

When he looks at Metze, his best friend's eyes are on the man in the kitchen, opening and closing cabinets, very much at home here, and he's smiling.

|   
| 

"I think I'm going to leave the sinking ship before they kick me out," Metze says with a little sigh and Basti can hear faint babbling in the background - probably the TV. "I mean, my feet aren't getting any better and I think the WorldCup 2010 will have to make do without me - Per can handle the pressure okay on his own."

Basti swallows. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah." Strong and sure, and Basti smiles, loosening his grip on the cell.

"Do what you have to do - I'll be waiting here."

"Can I have the guest room?"

Basti laughs. "Fuck the guest room. Mi cama es su cama."

"Now I know why I love you, man," Metze says. "Keep hanging in there, Kelly. Won't be long."  
  
When Metze kisses Iago at the door, a soft peck on the lips, Basti wants to look away, but can't. "Hasta luego, Cristoph - adíos, Sebastian," and then Iago is gone and Metze closes the door.

"Does he know?" _Shit._ Basti turns and walks towards the balcony, the cooling cup of coffee in his hands.

He hears Metze's steps behind him, but they stop far too soon. "He knows some parts. Not everything. He knows we were - involved, but not more than that. He didn't ask."

"Oh." He stares into the coffee cup, the surface wobbling slightly and slowly loosens his too-tight grip. "Okay."

Metze clears his throat. "I - it just happened, you know, and - and I'm happy. With him. And - I'm glad that you're still my friend, Kelly."

Basti nods, not trusting his voice. He takes a sip, trying to wash the taste of ashes from his mouth, and watches the roofs of Madrid blur in front of his eyes.

It's for the best.

|   
| 

Basti thinks they have to buy a bigger place. His flat isn't big enough for the two of them, and there's still a lot Metze has put in storage, save for the leather couch which is now in his living room. They gave Basti's old one to one of Metze's cousins who's starting at the Bochum university.

He calls Torsten to ask him which realtor he used, because that house that the Fringser lived in back then? Fucking awesome. Basti wants something like that for him and Metze, and it isn't as if they couldn't afford it.

As it turns out, Petra still has that realtor's phone number and everything, and Basti thanks her profusely as he's writing the address down. She laughs lightly. "Well, at least you didn't ask for my car again that time. Give my love to Christoph, will you?"  
  
These tiny cubicles on flights are not so much toilets as torture rooms; everything's so small you constantly hit yourself on something, and it sucks, and Basti's crying.

|   
| 

Metze's fiddling for the ump-teenth time with his tie. "Fuck, why can't -"

Basti silences him with a quick kiss and bats Metze's hands away. "Calm down, you big lug. It's just a birthday party."

"Yeah, a birthday party my ass. It's _Luis'_ birthday party and - have we got all the presents?"

Now Basti can't help laughing. "I love you, you know?"

Metze grins at him wryly and grabs the car keys from the table. "I just don't want to fuck this up, Kelly."

Basti draws Metze's head down to kiss him again, smiling against Metze's lips. He edges his hand under Metze's jacket, smoothing over the graceful curve of his ass, and gives it a quick squeeze, his smile broadening as he feels Metze buck against him, the keys falling to the floor with a metallic clatter and then Metze's hand is in his hair, fingers entwining in the strands as he takes over the kiss, hot tongue ruthlessly plundering Basti's mouth.

They're just twenty minutes late, thanks to the shortcut Basti took, and Luis instantly latches onto Metze as he walks into the garden, Basti behind him with the presents and nodding to Tina with a smile. She's brought Oliver, whom Basti likes well enough. He and Metze have been over at theirs two times now, because neither of them can talk Luis out of anything he wants.

Luis loves their presents, especially the huge plush elephant and the small goal which he immediately puts to practice, with Metze acting as goalie, and Basti plays with Luis, setting him up with passes that Metze is seemingly incapable of catching. Basti's dad films everything with his new camcorder, and at one point Tina even takes over journalist duty, brandishing a wooden spoon at Metze and asking him about his awfully poor form but she has to giggle too much to really pull it off, and then Basti and Luis are the next to be interviewed, with Basti boasting about his fellow striker's brillance and Luis laughing at Metze making faces at him from behind Tina.

In the evening, the last remnants of dinner have been cleared away more or less and Basti's father has brought out the good wine, a 1997 Spätburgunder. Basti's mom sits down next to him and pats his hand. "My big boy," she says, smiling at him.

"Can you believe that I'm a father now?" he asks with a grin. "Soon it's Luis turn to make me a grandpa."

She laughs. "You'll be spoiling your grandchildren even more, I bet."

Basti snorts. "Please, Mom. Most of the stuff is what Christoph bought. I tried to talk him out of it, but no chance."

She smiles and he follows her eyes to where Metze is sitting with Benny and his fiancée, Luis on his lap playing with Metze's watch, curled up in the strong curve of his arm. "He's a good man, Basti." And suddenly it's not a secret anymore, and Basti wants to ask her how long she's known, if Dad knows, and - but that can wait for another time. Right now, he's where he wants to be. With his family.

Basti smiles. "I wouldn't have it any other way." And this is when Metze looks up and their eyes meet, and Basti suddenly has to laugh, happy and carefree.

This is how it ends, forever and ever.  
  
(Or not.

Basti sees Metze at the national team meet-up for the WorldCup 2010 and it's just like it has always been, and he smiles as Metze envelopes him in a bear hug, almost lifting him off his feet. "Missed you two years ago," Metze says, "it wasn't the same."

"Well, you're not going to get rid off me that easily," Basti says, grinning up at Metze as they make their way towards the meeting room. "I'll be around for the rest of your life."

Metze laughs. "You better be, Kelly."

And when a silver bracelet around Metze's wrist pulls at an old ache in Basti's heart, he lets it be and smiles at him.

They're still best friends, after all.)

|   
  
**fin**


End file.
